Rope (1948)
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Two young aesthetes attempt to commit the 'perfect murder' as an intellectual exercise, only to find their plan unraveling during a dinner party.
The story
Two brilliant young aesthetes, Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan, murder their former classmate, David Kentley, in their Manhattan penthouse apartment as an intellectual exercise to prove their superiority. After concealing the body in an ornate Italian chest, they host a dinner party for several guests, including the victim's father and aunt. Brandon intends to use the chest as a buffet table while attempting to maintain a facade of normalcy. However, the presence of their former prep-school housemaster, Rupert Cadell, creates a tense atmosphere as he begins to question the inconsistencies regarding David's absence.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan murder their former classmate David Kentley in their Manhattan penthouse to achieve the 'perfect murder.' They hide the body in a large chest and host a dinner party, inviting David's father, aunt, fiancée, and their former housemaster, Rupert Cadell. Brandon attempts to use the chest as a buffet table while navigating social interactions. Rupert, suspicious of David's absence, begins questioning Phillip, who becomes increasingly distressed and intoxicated. The tension peaks when Rupert returns alone after the other guests leave, pretending to have left a cigarette case behind. He demands to see the chest, and despite Brandon's objections, he opens it to find David's body. Horrified by the realization that the two men used his own rhetoric of superiority to justify murder, Rupert fires shots into the air to attract the police. The film ends with the police arriving as Rupert sits by the chest, Phillip plays the piano, and Brandon continues to drink.
- First release year
- 1948
- Runtime (minutes)
- 81
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Writers
- Arthur Laurents · screenplay; Hume Cronyn · adaptation
- Cast and characters
- James Stewart · Brandon Shaw; John Dall · Phillip Morgan; Farley Granger · Kenneth Lawrence; Cedric Hardwicke · Rupert Cadell; Constance Collier · Mrs. Atwater; Joan Chandler · Janet Walker
- Genres
- psychological crime thriller; drama
- Themes
- superiority; intellectualism; guilt; homosexuality
- Tone and mood
- tense; experimental; suspenseful
- Premise and plot tags
- perfect murder; limited setting; real-time; psychological thriller
- Source material / true-story basis
- 1929 play of the same title by Patrick Hamilton
- Content notes
- homosexual subtext
- Reception
- The film received mixed reviews and performed poorly at the box office upon its release, but its reception has grown more favorable over the years.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 93% · review count: 58; Metacritic · score: 73 · scale: 100
- Production trivia
- It was the first of Hitchcock's Technicolor films.; The walls of the set were on rollers and could silently be moved out of the way to make way for the camera.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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